


The Angel Room: What Happens to a Seraph When You F*ck With The Timeline - Part 2

by CatherineinNB



Series: The Angel Room [24]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angelic Lore, Angels, Angels Don't Get Pop Culture References, Angels Without Vessels, Canon Compliant, Courage, Enochian Blood Magic, Episode: s11e20 Don't Call Me Shurley, Episode: s14e13 Lebanon, Fare Thee Well, Gen, Heaven, Hey Jude, Leadership, Loyalty, Meta, Metafiction, Multidimensional Wavelengths of Celestial Intent, Music, References to the Beatles, Season/Series 14, Season/Series 14 Spoilers, Teamwork, Temporal Paradox, The Great Fall, Warding, Wavelengths, angel grace, heaven's prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 06:23:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19969468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatherineinNB/pseuds/CatherineinNB
Summary: Ever wondered what happened in heaven when Sam and Dean messed with the timeline by bringing their father to the present? Yeah, Makael knows. She remembers. And this is how it went down.Author's Note: This all takes place during "Lebanon." I was really interested in seeing more of what heaven would look like if the Apocalypse had never happened, and this is the second entry in the resulting series.





	The Angel Room: What Happens to a Seraph When You F*ck With The Timeline - Part 2

**Author's Note:**

> **_The Context:_**  
>  Eight-and-a-half months ago, seraph Makael, formerly of the Heavenly Choir, fled the _Supernatural_ universe after Michael arrived from Apocalypse World.
> 
> Makael had always been good at keeping to herself. It’s why she survived the intra-angel conflicts after the Great Fall. So when Michael started tracking down angels soon after his arrival from Apocalypse World, Makael decided that it was time to find a new universe to call home. Using a modified version of the spell that, years ago, propelled the Winchesters into an alternate universe, Makael was ready to make a new life for herself in ours. A quiet life. A human life, much like the one she had lived after the Fall. 
> 
> Then she discovered  _ Supernatural _ .
> 
> She told herself it was boredom, it was curiosity, it was a way to keep herself apprised of events back home that prompted her to start pulling characters into our universe for interviews after each new episode of Season 14 aired. She styled herself a journalist. An interviewer. A fangirl.
> 
> But meeting the Winchesters and their extended family changed her.
> 
> Makael is no longer an angel who stays safely on the sidelines. She’s … changed. Trained, first with Ketch, and then with Castiel. She’s literally fought for the Winchesters. Used her research skills, her talent with magic, and her voice (which used to serenade God in the Throne Room) to help them.
> 
> After weeks of working with them side-by-side in the Bunker, a misunderstanding (what she would call a failure on her part) led to her return to the place where it all started, the place Sam dubbed  _ The Angel Room _ .
> 
> That was, until  _ something  _ happened, and she found herself sucked back into her own universe and into a timeline that makes fuck-all sense. Michael—their Michael, not the one who’s been kicking around in Dean’s head—ruling heaven as God? Nuh-uh: that ain’t gonna fly.
> 
> It’s up to Makael to save the timeline.
> 
> Too bad she’s currently in heaven’s prison.

**_The Story:_**   
The problem with Enochian blood magic is that it requires _blood_.

Which is something that Makael currently doesn’t possess. Since, you know, right now she doesn’t have a body.

Hard to pick a lock without a lock pick.

If she had lungs, she’d sigh. If she had a head, she’d probably be thunking it repeatedly against the cell’s wall at this point.

**_The Story:_**   
The problem with Enochian blood magic is that it requires _blood_.

Which is something that Makael currently doesn’t possess. Since, you know, right now she doesn’t have a body.

Hard to pick a lock without a lock pick.

If she had lungs, she’d sigh. If she had a head, she’d probably be thunking it repeatedly against the cell’s wall at this point.

If she had blood, she’d be freaking  _ free  _ by now.

She knows exactly what spell she’d use to unlock her prison. She just doesn’t know what to substitute as an ingredient for blood. She’s tried the spell using her grace: nada. All that did was deplete her strength. That was after she tried physically jiggering the lock, calling up the energy to boop  _ and  _ to smite. Nothing. And  _ that _ was after she tried depleting the spells that fuel the cell’s wards by throwing her own energy against it over and over. Zilch. Plus, that  _ hurt.  _

She’s beginning to wonder if it was arrogant to think she could break out of a prison designed by God himself.

Probably.

But, on the other hand, you’ll never know if you don’t try. Repeatedly.

“You’re not getting out, you know.”

The words should sound taunting, and she searches the area for a guard she hasn’t noticed. But Heaven’s Prison is considered so secure that they don’t usually bother with guards. And the words  _ feel  _ exhausted, defeated, even with the tinge of humor that thrums along the edge. 

“Who’s there?” she asks. 

There’s a pause. Then, the voice replies, heavy with denigration and contempt—although it feels self-directed, “Only the most reviled angel in the history of heaven.” 

She can’t see the speaker. Heaven’s Prison is designed so that every cell faces a blank wall, and there are no vantage points into the adjoining cells, so all she has to go by is the feel/sound of the speaker. It takes a second for it to click into place. She’s used to the physical voice that’s associated with his vessel from watching  _ Supernatural _ , but even without it, his formal, clipped tone is unmistakable.

“Gadreel,” she says, softly.

“Yes. The very same.”

She can  _ feel  _ him bracing himself against whatever hatred is going to be directed his way, and she can’t help but think about how deeply lonely he must be to reach out despite expecting to be lambasted by his fellow prisoner.

She can’t think of anything to say, except, “You’re still here.”

“Where else would I be?” His voice is laced with wry humor.

_ Dead. _

“I assure you, they will never allow me any kind of release from this prison. Including death.”

Dammit, she’s projecting her thoughts again. 

“That’s not what I meant,” she protests. “I—I’m just surprised to see you here.”

“As am I of you, Makael of the Heavenly Choir,” says Gadreel.

Holy shit.  _ He  _ knows  _ her  _ name?  _ Nobody _ knew who she was before the wars happened in heaven. Nobody really cared until, suddenly, everyone was tallying up allies. 

“Uh, yeah?” She makes it a question.

“You are undoubtedly one of Michael’s favorites. You are the last angel I would have expected to see being confined.”

_ One of Michael’s favorites? Ew.  _

What the hell is up with her in this timeline, anyway? Is she some kind of diva-angel? An angelic Beyoncé? Seriously. This is weird as fuck.

At the same time, she notices that Gadreel isn’t calling Michael “God.” She tucks that away for future consideration. 

“Yeah, well, newsflash: Michael is a raging dick, and when I get out of here, I’m gonna make sure he ends up back where he belongs.”  _ In the cage. In Hell.  _ She manages to keep that last bit to herself—barely. 

She can still feel shock radiating out from the cell next to hers. 

After a long, long moment, Gadreel says, “You are not the seraph I expected.” He hesitates before he adds, “Although I am not certain as to what a flash of news  _ is _ , exactly.”

_ Oh.  _ She smiles internally, in spite of the overarching situation she’s currently in. Of course. This Gadreel would never have been to earth—at least not since the Garden. She finds his confusion at the human turn of phrase oddly endearing. 

Yeah, she hadn’t been a fan of Gadreel before the Fall—but she only knew of him by reputation. And, of course, she had been just as horrified and heartbroken as everyone else in the  _ Supernatural  _ fandom when she’d watched him kill Kevin. But she felt, instinctively, that his choice to join Team Free Will’s mission against Metatron, and his subsequent sacrifice to free Castiel from this very prison, had been … redemptive. And that reminds her again that he  _ should _ be dead, forever asleep in The Empty. Sadness washes over her.

“You know,” she says, after a moment, “we’re more than our mistakes. And we’re more than the headlines—sorry, the stories—that others tell about us. I know you’re not what you’re made out to be, Gadreel.”

“How could you possibly know that?” There’s an edge of bitterness to his words. “I have been a prisoner here since just after the birth of humankind. All that anyone knows about me are my mistakes, and the  _ stories _ told of me.” 

To explain, or not to explain? She decides on the latter. “I just  _ know _ . Some angels are able to make up their own minds about things.”

Puzzlement from Gadreel reaches her, along with his words. “I have not personally found that to be the case, Makael.” 

“Hm.” 

That’s … fair. It seems that here, in this timeline, the Great Fall never happened. Without the events that led to the Great Fall, none of the other angels would ever have been challenged to learn—or, at least,  _ try _ to learn—to think for themselves, to lay aside their strict programming to simply  _ obey _ .

Finally, she says, simply, “Well, this angel  _ does _ .”

More confusion from the adjoining cell, and she has the feeling that Gadreel is momentarily speechless. Finally, he says, “You do not hate me.” There’s confusion, and something like awe, in his words.

“No. Of course not.”

Another silence.

“Would you …” He seems to gather up his courage for something, and then he says, “Is there any chance you might sing to me, then?” 

Even as she registers her own surprise at getting song requests in prison from a fellow inmate, she realizes that, for the first time, she’s hearing something like hope in his voice—and it’s a fragile thing: something easily crushed. 

No way in hell she’s gonna do that. And besides, she needs a moment to rest, anyway—she’s been wearing down her grace with her repeated attempts to trick the warding systems. 

“Is there anything in particular you’d like to hear?”

Surprise, again, radiates out from the cell next to her own. “No.” His voice is dreamy now. “Anything will do. I … I am being greedy. You have already offered me indulgence simply by speaking with me.”

Makael laughs, and  _ that  _ startles both of them. She’d forgotten just what angelic laughter sounds like. It’s … it’s beautiful—even if she’s just hearing her own laugh. 

_ Why didn’t we do that more often?  _ she wonders. It’s not that she didn’t feel joy in heaven. She was almost always joyful, before God left. But laughter? For an angel, laughter was always rare. 

“Not greedy,” she assures him. She takes a moment to consider what to sing, and then that sense of an internal smile returns as she makes her choice.

She doesn’t sing anything from her past. She sings her present: a reminder to herself of what she’s fighting for. Of why she’s fighting to get out of here and fix whatever’s messed up the timeline:

__ Hey Jude, don’t make it bad  
__ Take a sad song, and make it better.  
_ Remember to let her into your heart:  
_ _ Then you can start to make it better. _

It’s a strange thing to sing, now, without the hum of human vocal chords, without the bodily resonance of the sound within her chest and head, without the push from her diaphragm. But there’s something very … restorative about it, too, when the melody begins inside of her being—inside of a form that was designed from the start to  _ sing _ . 

She lets the song fill her as she continues. It flows outward, filling the cell and swelling further, flooding the entire prison with her music. 

_ And anytime you feel the pain, hey Jude, refrain  
_ _ Don't carry the world upon your shoulders …  _

Oh, and the things she can do in this form with a song! It’s resonance and wavelengths of sheer beauty, and harmonies within harmonies, all within …  _ her _ , but shared openly with all inside the prison. And because angels can  _ feel  _ as well as hear, she fills her song with hope and healing and encouragement and  _ belonging _ —with all the things she’s learned from Castiel and Jack and Sam and Dean.

She’s transported back to the Bunker when she sang Dean to sleep, soothing Michael to stillness, watching Dean’s eyes get heavy as she listened to his breathing even out and saw the tension melting away from his long frame. Her entire being fills with the bittersweet of that memory, and a hundred more like it: the way that Castiel smiles with just his eyes, their clear blue sparkling with wry humor and affection; the warm camaraderie of sitting in silence with Sam in the main library as they researched side by side, the only sounds the turning of pages, the tapping of fingers on a keyboard, the scratch of a pencil;  _ Supernatural  _ viewing parties with Jack, his awe over seeing how  _ young _ Sam and Dean used to be (“ _ They were like me!” _ ), the peppering of his questions around mouthfuls of nougat.

_ Nah nah nah nah-nah-nah-nah, nah-nah-nah-nah, hey Jude …  _

Her timeline may not be perfect, but at least she’s fighting for something that’s right and good. She’s fighting on the side of the Winchesters: Jack and Castiel included. And that fight? It’s beyond important. All the people those four have saved, all the lives they’ve changed: that all needs to still happen. 

So. She sings, and the song  _ is  _ for Gadreel. But it’s also for her. And for the Winchesters. 

__ Nah nah nah nah-nah-nah-nah, nah-nah-nah-nah, hey Jude …  
_ Nah nah nah nah-nah-nah-nah, nah-nah-nah-nah, hey Jude …  
_ _ Nah nah nah nah-nah-nah-nah, nah-nah-nah-nah, hey—  _

“Makael?”

She’s been so focused on the song that she hasn’t noticed the other angel who’s entered the prison. He’s holding himself very still before her cell, disbelief and fear rolling off of him in waves.

“Vuriel.” It’s surreal, seeing her long-dead friend at the cell doors. She again has a strong urge to  _ touch _ him, to reach through the bars and—

But, even if they were both in possession of vessels and physical touch were possible, the invisible barrier woven between each bar would prevent any direct contact. 

“You recognize me.” Something like relief mingles with the other emotions pouring off of him.

“Of course I recognize you—”

“Thank  _ God _ you recognize me.”

The way he emphasizes “God,” she knows he’s consciously thinking of Michael. 

_ Ugh.  _

“I’d heard that sometimes imprisonment could drive an angel mad, but it’s … it’s happening to you so quickly,” says Vuriel.

Wait,  _ what?  _ Vuriel thinks she’s crazy? Makael is rendered momentarily speechless.

He regards her steadily, and she feels his disbelief and fear shifting into pity. “Then again, it seemed like you might already have been … struggling … earlier. I know how Michael is demanding of your attention and your voice, Makael—”

Okay, grateful as she is to have an opportunity to see Vuriel again, she’s had just about enough of—well, whatever  _ this  _ is. 

“Uh,  _ not insane _ over here. I am perfectly sane.”

“Makael.” There’s compassion from him now. “You were singing absolute nonsense when I came in.”

“That? That wasn’t nonsense. That was a song by the Beatles.”

“The … beetles?” The way he’s saying it, she is one hundred percent sure he’s thinking that she just told him that she learned a song from bugs.

“Not the insect, Vuriel,” she says. “They’re a band. A human band.”

Blankness radiates out from him, and, in turn, she’s momentarily stunned. Has the choir been kept so isolated up here that they don’t even know what a band is? 

“It’s like a choir,” she explains. “Of humans. With instruments that they play while they sing.”

Bewilderment now from Vuriel. “But the words make no sense. They have no meaning.  _ Nah  _ repeated over and over without …” He stumbles to a halt, and she feels his concern, his sudden hopelessness. “Makael, you’ve never been to earth. You couldn’t possibly know human music, or …  _ band  _ music.” He pauses. “I’m so sorry this is happening to you.” 

She  _ so  _ doesn’t have time for this. Any of this. She’d tired and let herself be distracted by Gadreel, and now this— 

She needs to be focusing on a way to get out, not debating her sanity with another angel. “Why are you here, anyway?” she demands, impatiently.

“I was worried about you, Makael. I wanted to see if you were all right.” He doesn’t move, but she can feel him crumpling in on himself. “You … you’re my friend.”

Well, shit. Now she feels like a complete asshole. 

She’d forgotten. Vuriel had always been the most sensitive of them. The most vulnerable. After God left, she’d tried to protect him from the egos and tempers of the other angels. It seems laughable now: Makael, the seraph who trembled in fear at the mere presence of an archangel, being someone’s protector.

She certainly hadn’t been able to protect him from Raphael.

“I’m sorry, Vuriel.” She projects the feeling outward, so he can feel her sincerity. “I don’t mean to snap at you. I just need to get out.” She pauses. “Also, not crazy. Really.” 

She’s instantly forgiven, although he doesn’t believe the ‘not crazy’ part.. It’s still strange that she can  _ feel  _ that without him saying a word. She really has spent too much time in human skin.

He presses on, eager now. “If you apologize to God, I am sure that he will release you. He is stern, but just …”

He keeps going, but she doesn’t really register what he says. The words sound as if they don’t originate with him; as if, instead, they’ve been told to him a hundred, hundred times, until they flow seamlessly from his own being. But worse? The sincerity behind what Vuriel is telling her is … genuine. He’s taken it all on board. He actually believes it. She feels sick.

“There is no fucking way I am apologizing to Michael,” she says, flatly. 

He flinches—and it’s weird, seeing a celestial bing flinch—not at the profanity, but at “Michael.” 

“You shouldn’t call him that.” His voice is hushed now.

“By what? His  _ name _ ?” She doesn’t bother to regulate her volume.

“Do not speak blasphemy,” says Vuriel, sharp and afraid.

_ Right.  _

“Michael is  _ not  _ God, Vuriel. Not by a longshot.” She pauses and focuses what she says next so that only he can hear. “And I think, deep down, you know that.”

The wavelengths that make up Vuriel fluctuate wildly for a split-second. Even his wings shudder. 

“I won’t listen to heresy,” he manages, anxiety roiling off of him. “I shouldn’t have come here. Goodbye, Makael.” And then, in a whoosh of feathers, he’s gone—not even bothering to use the entry by which he came, he’s in such a rush to be out of there.

“That was,” observes Gadreel, contemplatively, after a long moment, “most interesting.”

Makael makes the best approximation of a snort that she can manage, vesselless, but she’s not sure if it translates. She works to keep from broadcasting her sorrow and frustration. This wasn’t how she wanted her interaction with Vuriel to go, at all. She shouldn’t have prodded at him. 

“Why don’t  _ you _ call him God, anyway?” she asks, to distract herself.

“Why would I?” returns Gadreel, without hesitation. “He has never been  _ my  _ God. When I was last free, he was still very much our Father’s stalwart and true  _ son _ .” 

She thinks he’s done, and then he says, more quietly, “He is also the one that locked me away in this place.”

“He was?” Makael’s never heard that part of the story.

Gadreel chuckles, but there’s no joy in the sound of it. “You were, indeed, truly cloistered in the Throne Room before God left us,” he says.

Yeah, she really was.

He continues, “Michael was always our Father’s enforcer. He was the one who cast Lucifer out of heaven. He imprisoned me. Now, as the new …  _ God _ , he continues to relish punishment. Before he raised himself up to the Throne, I was the only prisoner here. Now, the prison is almost always full to the bursting.” There’s contempt as he goes on. “He knows how frightened the angels are of this place. We were not designed to be … isolated from each other like this, Makael. We can speak to each other, but we cannot—we were meant to be in communion with each other, with God.” 

Makael knows this. It’s part of why adjusting after the Fall was so difficult for most angels—the isolation from each other was excruciating for most, and only made worse by the limitations of human vessels: layers of blood and sinew and tissue between your  _ being  _ and the rest of the world. It’s why her brothers and sisters were so eager to join whatever faction would take them: they were desperate for community, for some approximation of what they had lost.

It’s why, after six years of her own, self-imposed exile, being around Castiel had been such a relief. 

Gadreel continues, gravely, “There is good reason why Vuriel feared for your sanity.”

“You seem to be doing just fine,” she says, dryly. She’s not worried for herself. She survived complete isolation from the rest of her kind quite nicely for  _ years _ , thank you very much. Besides, she’s getting out of here.

“I’m not most angels,” says Gadreel, just as dryly.

Makael decides right then and there that she genuinely lines Gadreel. But she switches gears, remembering the multiple angels she’d glimpsed on her way in. “What did the others do to end up here?” she asks.

“None of them will speak with me directly,” replies Gadreel, “but from the little I have overheard from them speaking to each other, it is often for the pettiest of so-called crimes: failing to exude enough gratitude in his presence, for example.” There’s a deep sadness radiating from him. “I have the sense, however, that our brothers and sisters would rather have a deeply punitive God than one that abandoned them.” He pauses. “I suppose I cannot blame them for that.”

No. She supposes she can’t either.

Still, “Fucking Michael,” she mutters. She can feel Gadreel’s amusement seeping out from his cell. With the internal equivalent of a sigh, she returns to the task at hand. “I need to get out of here,” she mutters.

“Mmm. As I said at the beginning of our conversation, I doubt that will happen.” 

_ Ugh.  _ Their whole interaction has gone full circle—and if that isn’t a metaphor for her predicament, she doesn’t know what is. She feels like her wheels are spinning, and she’s getting nowhere fast.

“Sam and Dean wouldn’t give up,” she murmurs to herself, forgetting that Gadreel will hear if she doesn’t shield her thoughts from him.

“Who are Sam and Dean?” 

_ Crap. _ “Doesn’t matter,” she replies, quickly.

There’s another silence. Then Gadreel says, “The song you were singing … I have never heard its like. Was it truly a song written by a human … band?”

“It was,” she says. 

“How do you know so much about humanity, Makael?” His tone is mild, but she can feel the burn of his curiosity. “I know that your wits are intact. Angels do indeed go insane in here—but that happens over time, and I doubt that you would be one of them, in any case.”

“… it’s a long story.”

He takes in that non-answer. Then, “Do you know of other human songs?”

“Yes.”

“Would you be willing to sing some more to me while you attempt the impossible, then?”

“What happened being worried about being greedy?” She smiles inwardly, pushes the feeling out so he can feel it, and feels a smile in return.

“I have discovered that indulgence, regrettably, only makes it worse,” he replies, lightly.

She laughs again at that, and decides that she can multitask: figure out a way out of here while indulging a lonely angel with some music. 

The singing actually helps her to concentrate, and the contentment she can feel radiating from the cell next to hers as she sings song after song—old ballads and lullabies, interspersed with music from movies and musicals and pieces by The Eurythmics and Black Sabbath and Ella Fitzgerald—is soothing. She’s beginning to come up with some theories about how the warding functions and how she might … unravel it, rather than break it, when Gadreel interrupts her.

“Did you see that?” He’s suddenly alert, his voice even crisper than usual.

“See what?” Gadreel’s intensity startles Makael out of the song she was singing ( _ Fare Thee Well _ —yes, she recognizes the irony of singing a song that Chuck sang whilst in the very prison he designed, but dammit, she likes the song.).

“The warding. It … just flickered for an instant.”

“It did?”

“I have never seen it do such a thing before, Makael.  _ Never.  _ And I have been here for a very long time.” 

_ Understatement.  _

So, why would it suddenly flicker  _ now _ ?

… unless …

She starts singing again, experimentally: continuing where she left off with the song that Chuck sang to Metatron in “Don’t Call Me Shurley.” 

This time, when the warding flickers, she sees it. Excitement surges inside of her, but she keeps singing—and it happens again.

No …  _ he wouldn’t have.  _ Would he?

Could God have created a key to Heaven’s Prison in the form of a song?

But that would mean—it’s dizzying, what that would mean.

She keeps singing. Maybe it’s simply a matter of finishing the song.

But she reaches the end, and nothing happens.

She feels herself deflate. Then she mutters, “Sam and Dean,” and begins the song again, with renewed vigor. 

She pours all of herself into it this time, every ounce of her focus and energy, and …  _ there.  _ Another flicker, this time lasting a breath longer—and another, and another.

But it’s not enough—not nearly enough time for her to slip out. And she doesn’t want to know what would happen if she was partway through when the warding kicked back on. She has a feeling it wouldn’t be pretty. 

“How are you doing that?” asks Gadreel when she reaches the end of the song for a second time. She can feel a mixture of disbelief and excitement pouring off of him.

His excitement is contagious, and she feels herself perk back up. This is  _ something _ ; she knows it. 

“That song I just sang? God sang it to Metatron in one of his little hideaways—a replication of earth’s B.G.’s Canteen.” 

“… I do not understand the majority of what you just said,” says Gadreel, finally.

_ Of course not.  _ Makael shakes her head.

“Doesn’t matter. What matters is—God liked this song. God designed this prison. Singing the song makes the wards flicker.”

Startlement emanates from the cell next to her own.  _ Now _ he’s getting it.

“You think the song may be some sort of key?” Gadreel’s voice is faint.

“Exactly. But … I think we may need more than one voice to turn the lock.”

“The other members of the choir will not help you with this, Makael,” says Gadreel, and she can hear the regret in his words.

“I don’t  _ need  _ the other members of the choir, Gadreel,” she says. “I need  _ you _ .”

And now Gadreel is downright astonished. “I cannot … I was not designed to sing, Makael,” he protests.

“Gadreel,” she says, earnestly, “we are all more than the sum of our design. Trust me when I tell you that: we are  _ all  _ more. Let me teach you the song. Try. Please.”

A long moment passes, and she can feel her excitement dip. 

But then, “Very well. Teach me, Seraph of the Choir.”

She does. And she gets the sense that Gadreel is not the only one listening. She can’t see any of the other angels the prison holds, but she can feel their attention, and something more stirring. Something very much like hope. It isn’t universal, but … it’s there.  _ No pressure.  _

Fact is, she’s never had to teach anyone how to sing before. All the other members of the choir just … knew. Right from the beginning. She has no idea what the right way to do it all is. So she thinks back to how Castiel taught her how to  _ boop _ . How Ketch taught her how to fight.  _ The basics. Always the basics first.  _

She starts off by describing to Gadreel—and whomever of the other prisoners are deigning to listen in—what a note is. What it feels like to hold it in your being. How it feels to let it flow outward, to share it with others outside of yourself. And then she holds a note, and asks Gadreel to try.

It’s off, of course. Way off, and she can feel his embarrassment. But she remembers how Castiel taught her to match the frequency of the energy he drew upon to boop by holding it, encouraging her to examine it. She remembers how it took several tries until she matched his frequency.

So she holds the note in her being, pushes it outward, asks Gadreel to find it, to match it, even as she keeps singing it, endlessly. 

It takes him some time, but finally he matches her note. 

And _ … does she hear the echo of that note from elsewhere in the prison, or is she imagining things? _

She can feel the pleasure that washes through his being when she praises him, and encourages him to try another. He finds the second note. And the third. And the fourth. So she moves on, and teaches him the concept of melody.

And she realizes that, even though this is necessary, even though the situation is dire, there’s something joyful about bringing music into the heart of another being.

She isn’t sure how much time passes, but she finally teaches him the song: words and melody only. The basics. No time for fancy stuff, like teaching him how to harmonize within himself or with her. She can feel more and more angelic attention on them from the other cells, and that makes her simultaneously nervous—what if someone betrays them?—and excited—what if others join them?

“All right,” she says. “Let’s try.”

And,  _ oh.  _

Gadreel can  _ sing.  _

His voice is rich and deep and full of all the things he’s had to endure in his long, long existence. Emotion pours out of him as he sings, edged with his own startlement and surprise, and then … joy. 

Her entire being shivers with the beauty of their voices working together.

And more than that? It’s  _ working.  _ The flickers in the warding are more substantial now, lasting longer than they did before. 

But it’s still not enough.

She hesitates. Then she makes a decision.

“I can feel all of you listening,” she says, projecting her words outside of herself and into the rest of the prison. “And I know you can see the wards flickering. So you know what we’re trying to do. But we need more voices to do it. Who will help us?”

There’s a long, drawn-out silence. Then— 

“What’s the point?” demands another voice. 

It takes Makael a moment to place it, but then she murmurs, “Ambriel.” The birth and death statistics angel who was consumed by Amara three years ago after the angels tried to smite God’s sister.

“Michael will just hunt us down,” continues Ambriel. “Kill us. Being stuck in here may suck—like, really, really suck—but it’s better than, well,  _ literal _ nothingness.”

Huh. The timid number-cruncher from Makael’s timeline just called Michael by his name and is using human slang.  _ Interesting. _

But Makael responds to Ambriel’s challenge. “I can show you how to protect yourselves from him—how to hide yourselves from him. I know how to ward against angels and archangels,” replies Makael. “I’ll show you—and Michael and the garrison members won’t be able to find you.” 

She can feel Ambriel scoff. 

“Nobod—”

Ambriel’s words cut off as Makael projects outward to each and every imprisoned angel the Enochian magic that hid her from the other Michael all those months ago, before she figured out a way to skip out on the universe she called home.

“It works better with a vessel, with blood—then you can actually ward a place rather than needing to hold the wards in your mind. But I was able to repel Michael with this when he forced his grace into mine just before he threw me in here,” she says, quietly but clearly.

Ambriel doesn’t respond for a minute, and Makael can feel her working through the magic: analysing it, breaking down its constituent parts to make sure it all makes sense. Then Ambriel says, “I’m in.”

And that’s it. Makael can feel the tide turning in her favour, can feel the others get behind Ambriel’s call: an angel who had called herself “expendable” in Makael’s timeline.

“All right,” says Makael. “If this works, you will all need to scatter. Immediately. Take flight around the globe and hide yourselves—in vessels, if possible. Like I said, the magic works better with blood. It will be better if you come up with an idea for a location on earth now, before we get going—but don’t share it with anyone here. If someone ends up getting caught, we don’t want to make it easy for Michael or the garrisons to find the rest of us.” 

She quickly shoots Gadreel and Ambriel pictures of their respective vessels from the show. “These two will likely say yes to you. And in a vessel, you’ll be more difficult to track, even if your internal warding slips.” She can feel mild distaste, even as she shares the information with them. She still has mixed feelings about the whole human/angel vessel-sharing business, but if she’s able to get out, hopefully she will be able to reset the timeline and none of this will matter, anyway—and she owes both Gadreel and Ambriel for their help. 

There’s surprise from Ambriel. “How do you know that?” she asks, keeping her question focused on Makael alone, so no one else can overhear it. “How do you know any of this?” 

“It’s too long a story to go into,” says Makael. “I’m just gonna need you to trust me. I know you have no reason to, but … regardless. I’m going to need your trust.” She can feel Ambriel mulling that over, but Gadreel interjects.

“You said  _ you  _ will all need to scatter. Are you not planning on running, Makael?” asks Gadreel. 

“I have … I have something I need to check,” says Makael. “Then I’ll run.” She directs her attention back to the rest of the prison. “All right. Anyone feel like they need some quick coaching before we try this?”

She’s again jarred by the … absence of physicality she feels as she works through a couple of tricky bits of the melody with one angel, and helps another who can’t quite match notes. If she were in a vessel her heart would be pumping at this stage, jitters racing through her body, making her palms sweaty. Now she merely feels the shiver of anticipation running along her grace—the sensation completely incorporeal.

“All right,” she says, finally. “Let’s try it. I’ll start us off. Join in as you can.” She centers herself, stilling the shivers in her grace, and begins:

__ If I had wings like Noah’s dove  
__ I’d fly up the river to the one I love  
_ Fare thee well, oh, honey,  
_ _ Fare thee well. _

The beginning is a bit … rough, but the other angels catch on. Quickly. As she moves on to the next verse, the melody becomes more solid, and the resonance builds. The warding flickers, like staticky reception on very old television sets, as more and more voices join in, and as the sound swells it cuts out completely for one … two … three … before it reboots, like the power stuttering back on after an outage. 

Makael broadcasts encouragement to the others as she pours herself into the song, making it her singular focus, putting more into it than she has into any other song in her very long existence. Because singing to God? It was her purpose, yes, and her joy—before he abandoned them. But there was never any urgency to it. And while she gave her very best for Dean when she was trying to help him soothe Michael into quietude, she was limited by her vessel. Here, in her true form, her gift is nearly limitless. And she is  _ driven _ here, now, in a way that she never was before, when she called heaven home.

_ One of these days, won’t be long,  
_ _ You’ll call my name and I’ll be gone _

If she had time to process it—really process it—Makael would be stunned. She’s never experienced something like this before. The raw, beautiful desperation, the sound of untested angelic voices gaining confidence, gaining strength and cohesion and—oh, some of them are even improvising harmonies.  _ Oh. _

As it is, she can see the individual sigils in the warding begin to flare as the flickering in the overall wards begins again—snapping in and out of existence. A low whine begins to emanate from the wards, intensifying steadily. Somewhere, in the distance, she can hear an alarm begin to blare.

_ Fare thee well, oh, honey …  _

The whine from the wards intensifies, as does the glare from the individual sigils that make them up, so that Makael has to shield herself from the sound and the light.

_ Fare thee well …  _

But the sound of this improvised, desperate choir drowns every other noise out as the light becomes blinding.

_ Fare thee well. _

There’s a fever pitch of intention and sound and light and hope. And then—then there is sudden and startling quiet and dimness (although the dimness is comparative—nothing is ever really dark in heaven). It takes a split second for Makael a second to realize that the wards are gone. Completely. The feeling of nausea that had been so constant since she first entered the prison that she’d almost forgotten it vanishes. 

But she can still hear the alarm blaring in the distance, more distinctly, now that the warding is down and the song complete.

She doesn’t think they’re going to be given much time.

“Put up the personal warding I showed you. All of you.  _ Now _ .” It’s eerie to feel the individual presences of the other angels disappear from her awareness, like the extinguishing of candles in a sudden breeze, even though she  _ knows  _ they’re still all there. Which needs to be remedied. Quickly. 

“Go,” she says, pushing out the order to the entire prison. “Run. Now!” 

There’s the rush of many wings, so many she can’t even count, as they all follow her command. 

All but one.

“Gadreel,” she begins, “you need to get out of here.”

“No. I will be going with you.”

“Gadreel—”

“We do not have time to argue. Show me where you are going, and I will follow.”

She snarls her frustration, but she  _ looks _ —and is surprised when she can’t find what she’s looking for. 

_ All right, then. Plan B. _

She quickly finds her new destination and broadcasts it to Gadreel before she slams down her personal warding. He vanishes from her awareness in the breath before she feels the onrush of many wings—wings of warrior-seraphs, no doubt.

She spreads her own and is gone from behind the bars of her cell the instant before two whole garrisons descend upon the prison in righteous fury.

~*~*~*~*~*~

“Vuriel.”

The angel startles at the sound of his name, the wavelengths that make up his being rippling. A few feet away from him, a woman has her hands deep in the dirt of a garden as she plants pansies. She continues, her soul oblivious to the goings on around her in her personal heaven, as Vuriel turns in Makael’s direction.

“Makael—how?” He stutters to a halt. “Who is that with you? And … why can’t I  _ feel  _ you?”

Makael spares a glance around the soul’s heaven: a little yellow-painted cottage with old oak trees surrounding it; white shutters on the windows; a blue sky overhead, filled with puffy white clouds. The woman is humming to herself as she works.

She ignores Vuriel’s question. “I need to find a garrison member,” she says urgently, moving towards the other angel. Gadreel follows, slightly behind her and to her right.

“Wh—what?” Vuriel begins to back away. “Why would I know where a garrison member is? The Choir has no business with warrior-seraphs.”

“No, we don’t,” says Makael. “But my Vuriel knew all the goings-on in heaven, even before God left us. It never interested me until our Father abandoned us—I thought it was just useless gossip. Then his knowledge became vital. My Vuriel was able to tune in and process communications between angels in a way that was unique to him. And he listened … unobtrusively. I suspect you have that same talent.”

“ _ Your  _ Vuriel?” echoes back the other angel. She can see his fear, his worry, even though, with her wards up, she can no longer feel any of it. “You speak as if there were more than one of us. Please, Makael, let me find the others. We can help you.”

“Oh, for the love of—I’m not crazy, Vuriel. Just tell me if you know which garrison Castiel is currently stationed with.”

The stutter that shivers through Vuriel’s grace in response to the name gives him away, even without the ability to feel him. She feels a small flare of triumph. For the first time since she was pulled into this timeline something is going her way.

“You recognize the name. Tell me.”

“No. Makael. I—how are you even  _ here _ ? Did—did God forgive you? Did he release you?”

Gadreel speaks for the first time, his voice a low growl. “Do not deflect Makael’s question, Seraph of the Choir. Answer her. And do not even  _ consider _ fleeing.” The threat hangs between them, unspoken, Gadreel’s wings flaring wide and commanding.

Vuriel’s focus darts back and forth between the two of them, and he shuffles his own wings. For a split second, Makael thinks he will try to fly from them, but then his entire being droops. “I … the angel Castiel is currently with the garrison that’s under Zachariah’s command. And … something big is going on. I overheard two of his garrison members saying earlier that Castiel was chosen personally to accompany his commander to Earth. They were to find vessels, and then embark on some sort of mission to … I believe it was somewhere in Kansas.”

_ Fuck. _

“Lebanon,” murmurs Makael. 

“Yes.” She can see Vuriel’s startlement. “Yes, that is the name. How … how did you know?”

“I know what they’re after there. Or … who.” Of course. Of  _ course.  _ If time had been messed with,  _ of course  _ Sam and Dean were at the heart of it all. And if Castiel had taken a human vessel, no wonder she hadn’t been able to find him in the split-second that she’d been able to search for him. Human vessels muddied the waters a tad.

And if Castiel had been sicced on Sam and Dean— 

“Gadreel, we need to get to Lebanon,  _ now. _ Will you be able to follow me there?” 

“I do not know where that is, Makael. I have no knowledge of current Earth geography.”

_ Shit.  _

“Okay. Okay. I’m gonna lower my wards for a split second, and so are you, so you can see where I’m going. Then right back up, and we get out of here.” Makael turns her attention back to Vuriel. “Vuriel, thank you. This … thank you for helping me. But you should leave now. We’re going to have garrison members on our asses as soon as we lower our wards. I don’t want you caught up in this.”

“Makael—”

“I’m sorry, Vuriel. I wish I had time to talk to you like I want to. I wish—I wish a lot of things. But believe me, you need to go.  _ Now. _ ”

Vuriel regards her steadily, and for once, she doesn’t know what he’s thinking. Then he’s gone in a rush of feathers. The human soul continues her gardening a few feet from where he was, oblivious.

Makael turns to Gadreel. “Are you ready?” she asks, pulling up the information she needs to impart.

“Yes, Makael. I am ready.” Gadreel’s being shines steadily, his wings at the alert, yet not tense. 

“All right. Now.”

They drop the warding simultaneously, and she projects the information to Gadreel, even as she takes in that his calmness is not a facade—it’s genuine. She finds herself taking more comfort in that than she perhaps ought to, given the circumstances.

“Got it?”

“Yes.”

She slams her warding back into place, and the two of them are gone in a soft whoosh of wings.

An instant later the two garrisons appear, securing the area and scanning it for any sign of the two angels. In the background, the woman’s tuneless humming continues.

“Hmm,” says Balthazaar, thoughtfully, taking in his surroundings.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Makael had almost forgotten how much could be accomplished with wings. It makes up for the fact that she can’t get into the Bunker. Without a vessel, its warding is so strong that she can’t even get within a mile of it. But she’s able to pinpoint the disturbance in town in milliseconds. She hones in on the restaurant on Main Street—the one where Dean took her to get some incredible loaded fries when her grace was depleted. 

It’s abandoned at the moment, and the place has been trashed.

“An angel has died here,” says Gadreel. She can hear the horror in his voice, even if she can’t feel it currently.

They both look at the burnt-out shadow of wings on the floor. Makael feels queasy. Surely Sam and Dean wouldn’t have … 

_ Her  _ Sam and Dean wouldn’t have— 

She’s about to slip into panic when she sees the blood sigil on the ground closer to the front entrance. 

_ Blood sigil. _

An Enochian banishing sigil, to be exact. 

Relief floods through her.

“They banished him,” she murmurs. She turns to look back at the burnt-out wings over which Gadreel still hovers. “Which means  _ that _ ,” she says, “must be Zachariah.” She pauses. “And it also means they still remember. They could only know Enochian banishing sigils if they met angels.” She turns to Gadreel, suddenly urgent. “Do you know if the Apocalypse ever got underway?” she asks. “I know you were isolated, but …”

Gadreel’s regard is searching, but he merely says, “I have not heard any angel in the prison referring to the Apocalypse. I rather think I would have, had it been put into motion.”

“Okay.” Makael takes that in. “If the Apocalypse hasn’t occurred, that means that in this timeline, angels shouldn’t have been to earth in millennia. Which means that Sam and Dean couldn’t have learned about banishing sigils as part of this timeline. Which means they really  _ do  _ remember.” She isn’t sure if she’s still relieved as she realizes that, or if she’s furious.  _ What have Sam and Dean done?  _ She doesn’t have time to dwell, because she suddenly realizes something else. “I’m also guessing this means that Castiel must be using the same vessel from my timeline. They banished him instead of killing him, like they did Zachariah. They must have recognized him.”

“Your timeline?” Gadreel’s composure hasn’t flickered once, and Makael is … impressed, in spite of herself.

“Yes.” She steadies herself and then tells him as much as she can in condensed form. Just the basics—but enough so that he gets the overall picture. 

Gadreel considers it all for a moment. Then he says, merely, “All right.”

“All right?” Makael is completely taken aback. “That’s it?”

“Yes,” says Gadreel, simply. “Makael, nothing you tell me could shake my allegiance. You have freed me from millennia of imprisonment. I am yours to command.”

“I don’t command anyone,” she says, surprised at her own fierceness. 

“Really? I thought you made for an impressive commander back in Heaven’s Prison,” returns Gadreel, dryly. He lets that sink in for a beat, then continues, “Regardless, you have my loyalty. What is our next step?” 

“Our next step,” she says slowly, “is to find human vessels. We can’t truly interact with this world without them—and Sam and Dean have bought themselves time, but Castiel won’t stay banished for long. If I can just—” She shakes off the thought, afraid that  _ this  _ Castiel won’t be open to anything she has to say. Not if he was fighting Sam and Dean so fiercely that they had to banish him. She can only hope that the  _ spark  _ that always made Castiel different still remains. She refocuses on the task at hand. “Do you remember the man that I showed you? Your vessel?”

“Yes.”

“Go find him. I will find mine, and then I will meet you back here.”

Gadreel is gone in a flutter of wings, and, after one last look around the deserted restaurant, Makael  _ looks  _ for Sarah—the human whose vessel she’s occupied in her own timeline. 

_ Looking  _ as a multidimensional wavelength is much more complicated to describe than it is to do. A potential vessel should stand out more to an angel than the rest of the mass of humanity—and even though they’ve never met here, she developed a rapport with  _ her  _ Sarah prior to her soul’s departure from her body, so she is fairly certain she can convince  _ this _ Sarah to say a temporary “yes.” However, in a matter of mere seconds, she realizes that Sarah is nowhere to be found. It’s like she doesn’t exist on earth at all. Which can only mean … 

Makael turns her attention skyward, and feels a sudden rush of hopelessness.

If Sarah isn’t on earth, she can only be in heaven. 

In this timeline, her vessel doesn’t exist.

Her resounding “Fuck,” is so emphatic that the front windows shatter, nearly covering the soft  _ whup-whuff _ of Gadreel’s return.

“What is it?” 

And it’s jarring to hear his voice coming out of human vocal cords instead of  _ feeling _ it—as it is to see the gaze of his human, grey-green eyes layered with the white-blue of his grace as he looks up at her. When he moves toward her, however, he moves with an ease that would make her believe that he’d inhabited the human form for decades, not mere minutes.

Despite herself, she’s impressed that Gadreel could gain entry to his vessel so quickly. She turns her attention towards an explanation for the broken windows. 

“The vessel I inhabited from my timeline? I believe she’s deceased.” She hates how cold it sounds. But in her timeline, Sarah was at peace and in heaven—so she has to assume that the same has happened to her here, too. 

Gadreel’s lips thin. “What shall we do, then?”

She runs through her options, quickly, and she realizes that she only knows the location of one other potential vessel who might allow her entry—if approached carefully.

“You see if you can locate Castiel,” she replies. “Don’t engage him—just, see if you can find him. Unobtrusively. Do you think you can do that?”

“If he is present on earth, I will find him. And you?”

If she had lungs at present, Makael would sigh. “I’m headed to Pontiac, Illinois—to see if I can find another vessel who will say yes. Meet me there once you’ve located Castiel?” 

Gadreel nods his understanding impassively, and the two angels disappear in a rustle of feathers.

**END SCENE.**

**Notes:  
** Man. It’s been  _ forever  _ since I’ve posted. FOR. EVER. I’ve been super busy with my new job (which I love!), was sick for a few weeks, hosted a friend in my apartment for a couple of weeks, and have been making some difficult decisions in my personal life—in other words, writing has taken a back seat. I’ve worked on this entry in the series off and on for over two months, but finally found my momentum again in the last couple of days.

It’s interesting that this coincided with a very emotional week for the fandom, with the San Diego Comic-Con panel taking place and all the feels associated with that event. I’m actually working on doing a podcast in relation to all the emotions surrounding this last season with a fellow fan, so that’s also been in the works.

I think partly my re-found momentum was a way of wresting back control over the out-of-control feelings regarding all these endings that have been alluded to over the past few days by the stars and writers of the show. This little world that I’m working in with Makael gives me a lot of creative freedom, and I have found that very helpful over the last couple of days. It’s interesting that I was writing a character who was also wresting back control in her situation—literally escaping from a prison into which she was put by others. There’s an analogy in there somewhere, but my brain is too tired from getting this fic done to tease it out.

All right. Onto story notes:

  1. **Some literary symmetry:** I couldn’t help myself. I got excited when I realized that I could end on the same “If she had” note that I opened with—just a little reminder of how used Makael has become to living as a human book-ending the fic. Yes. I am a geek. #SorryNotSorry
  2. **All that music:** There was a lot of music in this entry, which wasn’t the plan when I started, but after I got going it made sense. Makael was created to be a musical creature, and back in heaven and in her true form it made sense to me that music would feature prominently. However, I think what I enjoyed about it was that she reached, during this return “home,” for music from the place where she’s felt most truly at home: the Bunker. She uses her musical gifts in this entry as a way of grounding herself in what is truly important to her now, rather than reverting back to the kind of music she would have sung before. I think that shows just how firmly her allegiance is tied to TFW 2.0. I also found the way that she escaped very relevant—she didn’t accomplish it on her own, but with a team, using skills she has learned since she met the Winchesters (teaching and leadership). As for how all of this ties in with Chuck? Oooh, I am having SO much fun batting that one around. More to come.
  3. **Vuriel:** The character of Vuriel has ended up being something of a foil for Makael herself. He’s meant to reflect her past, who she was and who she might have continued to be if she had never Fallen and had to survive on her own.
  4. **Ambriel:** Ambriel just sort of popped in out of nowhere in this entry. I really loved her very brief appearance on _Supernatural_ , and I was bummed that she ended up being gone so quickly. I also loved the idea of inverting who she was in Makael’s timeline (a deferential, nervous, obscure angel) and making her into a leader who was tough and savvy in this one. I think she’s had an interesting backstory in this timeline, and I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Ambriel in this fic—but that isn’t a definite thing.
  5. **Gadreel:** I _loved_ Gadreel’s character, and jumped at the chance to bring him back in this little series within a series. I adore Tahmoh Penikett, and have been a fan of his since he played Helo in _Battlestar Galactica_. I also have always wished that we got to see more of the Gadreel we got to know just before his death—the Gadreel who wasn’t blinded by his misplaced loyalty and his sense of honor and who made the right choices. So this is my chance to revisit that potential and enjoy his character some more.
  6. **New vessel:** I knew from before I even started writing this series that Sarah was not going to be available to be Makael’s vessel in this timeline. I can’t wait for the big reveal in the next entry. :D



All right, that’s it! As always, thank you for reading and comments are welcomed (and adored)! 


End file.
